


Nickname

by FidgetyWriter



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-19
Updated: 2013-08-19
Packaged: 2017-12-24 01:20:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/933441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FidgetyWriter/pseuds/FidgetyWriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On how the King of Ferelden came to call his Queen "Tuck"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nickname

She supposes most husbands have silly pet names for their wives, but it is an unlikely one that sticks with them.

Cecily remembers standing, shivering, on the outskirts of Lothering. Her clothes, the ones she had worn since the night Howe murdered her family, served as a stark reminder for the horrors that had taken place there. But getting a girl a shirt that didn’t have her father’s blood smeared across the front seemed a low priority for the Grey Wardens. They had a Blight to contend with, so what was a little token of horror to their newest recruit?

Except suddenly she was no longer the newest recruit, but one of only two surviving Wardens in all of Ferelden (funny how she had developed a new tendency to be amongst the few survivors of any given massacre). The air around Lothering was thick and heavy with the hum of the darkspawn that prickled at the edges of her consciousness since she’d raised a cup of their blood to her lips.

“Is that all you have?” Alistair had asked.

“Hmmm?” She was only vaguely aware of her five companions.

“Is that all you have to wear?”

“Oh. Yes.”

There was a long pause, and she assumed he had lost interest in the conversation. Better that way. She didn’t much feel like talking.

“Do you…” He cleared his throat and raised an eyebrow at her. “Do you want to borrow something else to put on?”

The words took a few seconds to register in her tired mind. The idea of borrowing clothing from her fellow Warden, who stood at least a foot taller than her, would have been laughable if everything in the world wasn’t so terrible.

“Just until we get to Redcliffe, of course,” Alistair added quickly. “I’m sure we can find you something more fitting there.”

“Why not?” she said. Anything to get this shirt that reminded her of murder off of her body.

He rummaged around in his pack for a few seconds and withdrew a simple overshirt.

“Thanks,” she muttered, taking it and slinking off into the darkness to put it on.

It hung on her much as she expected it would, baggy and falling nearly to her knees. Still, it was better than wearing the blood of her father across her chest like a badge of horror and grief. She balled the offending garment up into a tiny ball and stuffed it into her back pocket, eager to never think of it again.

Cecily returned to camp, thinking of nothing but climbing into her bedroll and sleeping till her blossoming headache cleared. 

Squatting down by the fire to add one last log to keep it going for Morrigan’s night watch, she heard Alistair laugh.

“What?” she demanded.

“Sorry,” he replied, hastily trying to put on a serious face, failing, and then bursting into harder laughter. “Sorry, it’s just so big on you.”

She glanced down at the shirt pooling behind her, sinking low enough to brush against the grass. The sight of it combined with   
Alistair’s laughter struck her as inexplicably funny.

She tried to swallow the laughter that bubbled up to the surface, but it forced its way out. Their chuckles drew a displeased look from Sten.

“I suppose I’ll need to tuck this in tomorrow morning,” Cecily said. 

“Unless you’d rather fight in what amounts to an evening gown.”

She laughed again.

“No, no, I don’t. See you in the morning.”

“Good night, Tuck.”

It is the same three words he whispers to her a year and a half later on their wedding night.


End file.
